CBS – Jurors in New Mexico have awarded a man more than $412 million in a medical malpractice case that involved a men’s health clinic that operates in several states.
The man’s attorneys celebrated Monday’s verdict, saying they are hopeful it will prevent other men from falling victim to a scheme that involved fraud and what they described as dangerous penile injections.
They said the punitive and compensatory damages total the largest amount to ever be awarded by a jury in a medical malpractice case in the U.S.
“It’s a national record-setting case and it’s righteous because I don’t think there’s any place for licensed professionals to be defrauding patients for money. That is a very egregious breach of their fiduciary duty,” said Lori Bencoe, one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiff.
“That’s breach of trust and anytime someone is wearing a white coat, they shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”
The award follows a trial held in Albuquerque earlier this month that centered on allegations outlined in a lawsuit filed by the man’s attorneys in 2020. NuMale Medical Center and company officials were named as defendants.
“This corporate scheme manipulates and uses fear as a tactic to convince these men to do this,” Nick Rowley, a trial lawyer, told CBS affiliate KRQE.
According to the complaint, the man was 66 when he visited the clinic in 2017 in search of treatment for fatigue and weight loss.
The clinic is accused of misdiagnosing him and unnecessarily treating him with “invasive erectile dysfunction shots” that caused irreversible damage …
